


A Doll's House

by Katydid_99



Series: A Doll’s House [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (for ch. 8 only), 1960s, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, An Unfortunate "Not Like Other Girls" Phase, Being Feminine to Piss Off Your Dad, Bisexual Diego, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon time travel, Canon-Typical Behavior, Character Study, Comic!Diego’s Powers, Coming to terms with Supressed Emotions, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Dysfunctional Family, Epiphanies, Gen, Genderbending, Genderswap, Girl Power, Grief/Mourning, Haircuts, Homelessness, Internalized Misogyny, John Mulaney Quotes, Makeup, Miscarriage, Nicknames, No Apocalypse, Non-Consensual Body Modification, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, Press and Tabloids, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Supressed emotions, Time Travel, Trans Female Character, Vague References to the JFK Assassination, Vietnam War, binders, canon age regression, dress codes, nonbinary klaus, psychotic breaks, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-11-18 12:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99
Summary: A collection of Umbrella Academy oneshots where everything's the same, but all the Hargreeves kids are genderswaped





	1. Introduction- Names and Origins

_On the twelfth hour of the first day of October, 1989, forty-three women around the world gave birth. This was unusual only in the fact that none of these women  had been pregnant when the day first began. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, eccentric billionaire and adventurer, resolved to locate and adopt as many of the children as possible. He got seven._

☂️☂️☂️

**The Umbrella** **Academy**

Number One: “Luisa”

  * Origin: Franco-Germanic. Female form of Louis, derived from Hluodowig
  * Meaning: Famous in War



Number Two: “Daniella”

  * Origin: Hebrew. Female form of Daniel. Common in Spanish-speaking countries
  * Meaning: God has judged, or God is my judge



Number Three: “Arthur”

  * Origin: Anglo-Saxon. Ties to English mythology
  * Meaning: Bear King (albeit a loose translation; exact etymology unknown)



Number Four: “Klara”

  * Origin: German
  * Meaning: Clear, or Bright



Number Five: **[RETRACTED]**

  * Notes: numeral “5” associated with loyalty, balance, and love.



Number Six: “Belle”

  * Origin: French
  * Meaning: Beautiful



Number Seven: “Ivan”

  * Origin: Russian. Male form of Vanya.
  * Meaning: God is gracious, or to be gracious




	2. Hair- Luisa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luisa Hargreaves is nine the first time she cuts her hair.

Luisa Hargreaves is nine the first time she cuts her hair.

It’s no secret that when Dad scoured the globe looking for people like her and her siblings, he was expecting to find more boys. Instead out of the seven babies recovered, he only got two boys. One of them didn’t even count; Ivan was a spectacular violinist, but no superhero.

Dad had to “make do.” Luisa was already Number One, but didn’t want to be something someone had to “make do” with.

So in the upstairs bathroom with a chair under the doorknob and a look of stubborn determination, she slices off the long, blonde braids tossed over either shoulder with a pair of Mom’s sewing shears. Then, after taking a look at the resulting sloppy bob, proceeds to take it even shorter. The scissors make a hissing sound as they cut through her straw-colored locks, like shushing someone before telling a secret.

Daniella scoffs at the resulting pixie. Klara laughs and begs Luisa to do the same to her mess of black curls. Arthur says it’s pretty, which makes her frown because it’s not _supposed_ to be _pretty_ , but the compliment makes her glow inside all the same.

Dad doesn’t say anything, but she insists she can see a glint of approval in his eye. It’s enough to encourage her even as he makes her clean up the mess of blonde on the bathroom floor.

☂️☂️☂️

She keeps her short hair. She trades her schoolgirl skirts for shorts and then trousers. She spends far more time with Dad and Arthur than her silly sisters. She refuses the dresses and heels Mom suggests for profile events and goes with high-collared shirts and sensible, flat oxfords. She glares interviewers down if they dare and ask about something stupid, like her skin care routine or what kind of perfume she wears.

(She wears none. Obviously.)

She’s not like other girls; she’s never been just another girl! She can lift train cars without breaking a sweat. She can bend steel with her bare hands. She can fight any man and come out victorious. While other girls are busy painting their nails and fretting over boys, Luisa is saving the world.

☂️☂️☂️

As an adult, Luisa can recognize the toxic mindset she had. Call it what you will: internalized misogyny, penis envy, anti-feminism… it’s a trap too many young girls find themselves in, and many spend the rest of their lives deprograming themselves.

But as Luisa looks down at the leathery, genderless chest and giant, fur-covered arms that she’s awoken with her head attached to, she has no idea where to begin.

☂️☂️☂️

Forgetting is easy on the moon. It’s also where, for the first time in sixteen years, she doesn’t cut her hair.

Some days, even though she knows she’ll pay for it later when the air-filtration system starts beeping up a storm, she’ll lie on her cot with her bun untied and watch. She’ll stare straight up, ignoring everything else, looking at the long pale waterfall swaying above her. It’s almost been four years, and in a space with normal gravity it would hang past her waist. The silver light casting off the moon rocks beams into her windows, highlighting everything to the point where she can count the individual strands.

Faintly, Luisa will wonder what her father would think if he could see her now, wasting time she could be using to analyze samples and monitoring deep space activity by doing something as dumb as staring at her hair.

One day, Lusia is surprised to find that she doesn’t really care.

☂️☂️☂️

In a bizzare reprise of the incident that happened twenty years ago, Luisa ties her hair into two pigtails and snips them off with quick precision. She’s back in her childhood home, her childhood bathroom, and even though she knows no one’s coming for the funeral until later she still stuck a chair under the doorknob.

This time, however, when she analyzes the dirty blonde bob that curves slightly in with her chin, she merely tidies the split ends a bit and puts the scissors down. Stares at herself. Pulls it away from her face with a simple barrette. Forces a small smile.

Daniella scoffs, completely unrelated to the new hairstyle; she just hates her. Klara laughs and tells Luisa to let her know if she ever thinks about cutting it off again (“We can be the Pixie Twins!”) Arthur says it’s pretty, which makes her frown because of a bone-deep certainty that he must be lying, but the compliment makes her glow inside all the same.

Some things never change.


	3. What Binds Us- Arthur and Klara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klara won’t look at him; she just stares straight ahead with wide, wet eyes. “Please don’t tell Dad.”

When Arthur bursted into Klara’s bedroom without knocking, he aimed to question her about the whereabouts of his green flannel. He wasn’t prepared to see his sister half-naked.

This wasn’t really the startling thing in all of this- Klara had been campaigning for the right to be topless ever since they had started puberty- because if he and Ivan could do it, why couldn’t she?- and being one of two boys in a house full of girls Arthur was completely unfazed by the female anatomy even at fifteen.

No, what surprised Arthur was the fact that Klara’s entire chest was bruised over.

“Oh my God!” he shouted before he could stop himself, closing the door behind him before anyone else could see.

“Don’t look!” Klara squeaked, cringing away and trying to cover herself, which only managed to concern Arthur more. Klara was never concerned about people seeing her naked.

Arthur took her thin arms and pried them away from her midsection. His heart sank into his shoes. Her ribs looked like a crude bastardization of Van Gogh's _Starry Night_ ; mottled blue and black with a faint yellowish undertone to the paler areas. One floating rib was set at a funny angle, and Klara winced when he touched it.

“Jesus Christ, Klar…” Arthur whispered.

Klara won’t look at him; she just stares straight ahead with wide, wet eyes. “Please don’t tell Dad.”

“‘Don’t tell-?’ You know we have to report if we’re injured during a mission! There’s no shame in that!” Arthur’s mind reeled. When did she manage to get hurt like this? He couldn’t remember her getting thrown or hit too hard in recent memory, but some of these bruises looked several weeks old. Others looked fresh.

“They’re not from a mission,” Klara mumbled.

“Then what? Training? Did Luisa get too rough, or Belle-?”

He stopped. Klara had something clenched in her hand. Slowly, he encouraged her fingers apart to reveal a small roll of ace bandage.

“Shit,” Arthur whispered passionately. “Have you been _binding_ with this stuff?”

“Well, considering the fact that I don’t have tits half the time…” Klara tried to laugh, but it came out wheezing, like it hurt.

Bother instincts kicking in, Arthur hushed her and navigated then over to the bed. “You’re hurting yourself. Don’t you know how dangerous it is to bind like this?”

“It’s not like I have a lot of options here, buddy! If you haven’t noticed, Dad’s not particularly _wild_ about non-traditional gender roles.”

“That’s not true. Lu wears pants.”

Klara laughed her wheezy laugh again, rolling her eyes dramatically and staring out the window. “Not the same thing, Artiekins.”

The two of them were quiet for a minute. Arthur couldn’t stop looking at the bruises painting his sister’s chest. Or the vacant look in her eyes. He was used to Klara bouncing off the wall, chattering excitedly to Belle and singing at the top of her lungs along to her Walkman. She shouldn’t be this quiet.

“I don’t do it all the time,” she finally mumbled. “Some days my tits just don’t look right, or they don’t go with my outfit, and I just kinda… “ she blew a raspberry and gestured vaguely. “Y’know?”

Arthur managed a confused smile. “Not really? But you deserve to be comfortable without hurting yourself.” Making a decision, he hopped off the bed and threw a random shirt at Klara. Incidentally, it was the flannel he’d come into the room to ask for, but that didn’t matter right now. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”

The girl held up the shirt and considered it for a moment. “Out? Intriguing, intriguing… to where, pray tell?”

“First, we’re gonna get some ice for your ribs- we can’t go to the fridge unless we want Mom or Pogo asking. Then we’re gonna get somewhere with internet access and find you an actual-ass binder. Just promise you’re not going to use the bandages anymore.”

Getting tackled-hugged by his half-naked sister wasn’t super high on the list of things Arthur wanted to experience, but the smile on Klara’s face was well worth it.

☂️☂️☂️

A lifetime later, Klara showed up for their father’s funeral in a ouija board print binder and a pair of Arthur’s pants, worn high at the waist with a black belt.

“Are those _mine?”_ he asked incredulously.

“Oh, you like it?” Klara responded in a singsong tone, giving a half twirl. “A bit big in the waist, but it cups the ass nice, huh?”

She was drunk, and high, and stoned, and God knows what else, but even then all Arthur could do was smile wearily. Her ribs were still unmarked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't use ace bandages to bind.  
> If you're a minor and unable to get a binder, please check you FtM Essential's FTME Free Youth Binder Program.  
> Stay safe, lovlies!


	4. While You Were Busy Being Perfect, I Studied the Blade- Daniella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Luisa comes out the bathroom at age nine, her hair cut like a freshly-shorn sheep, Daniella scoffed. So that was the game Dad was willing to play...

Daniella gets the most media attention out of all of them.

For all of Luisa’s leadership and Arthur’s “only boy” sthick and Klara’s eventual descent into “child star gone wild,” there’s a narrative around Sir Hargreaves’s Number Two that the press latches onto with predatory greed: a little girl with bows in her pigtails and ruffles on her socks, whipping knives seemingly out of nowhere and taking down men three times her size. Eyewitnesses can report watching her using a blade as a mirror, applying a layer of shimmery lipgloss and smiling brilliantly, before throwing said blade and kebabing a terrorist against a wall without so much as looking in his direction.

Her smile didn’t drop once.

☂️☂️☂️

When Luisa comes out the bathroom at age nine, her hair cut like a freshly-shorn sheep, Daniella scoffed. So _that_ was the game Dad was willing to play.

While Luisa was a little smarter than her, Daniella was just a touch wiser. Of course she loved fighting and mud puddles and the old 80s action movies she and Arthur would sneak to watch when Pogo couldn’t tell them that they were “inappropriate for young children,” but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also love butterflies and dancing and sitting in Mom’s lap while she combed her long, dark hair and sang nursery rhymes to her.

What’s more was that Daniella was not nearly as devout to the man who had adopted her, and neither felt that she owed him anything or had anything to prove to him. Hargreaves wanted sons, but she wasn’t about to waste her time on something that would never happen. He already didn’t take her seriously. Her power, her stutter… her gender was just another entry on the list.

So the same day Luisa Hargreaves cuts her hair, Daniella Hargreaves asks her mother very sweetly if she could try nail polish for the first time. She spends the rest of the afternoon lacquering Belle and Klara’s fingertips the color of bubblegum, and at training the next day knives fly from her hands in a blur of pink.

She likes it.

☂️☂️☂️

Over her career as a superhero she’s been on every magazine imaginable, from _American Girl_ to _Tiger Beat._ When she’s seventeen she does an entire photo shoot underwater for _Cosmopolitan_ \- one last metaphorical fuck you to dear old dad before she moves out.

They call her The Blade Princess in the newspapers. Daddy’s Little Psycho. The Girl with the Knives. Dame Dagger. She prefers them to use her real names. Daniella Grace. Number Two. The Kraken.

Over the years her aesthetic darkens, but remains nevertheless. Glitter gloss and tulle becomes dark lipstick and leather. Throughout her brief snit in police academy she keeps her hair long and eyeliner sharp as a dagger. Patch rolls her eyes and chastises her for her showboating (Patch’s word, not hers), but still loves the waxy burgundy marks she leaves on her skin.

Is any of it overkill just to prove a point to her sister and father? Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s no one who can deny that- be it a kiss or a scar- Daniella has left her mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon notice- while I don’t think that the kids were ever officially given middle names, I think that Daniella would have taken Grace’s name as a tribute. She’s a mama’s girl like that 💕
> 
> Also, if any of you have ideas for genderbent oneshots, I’d be happy to hear them! Comment below!


	5. I Really Wanna Stay Here All Night- Klara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She never tells her that things get better, because she knows that’s what everyone on their side of history has been telling her ever since she realized she was herself, but she wants to so bad because it’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers: period typical transphobia/transphobic slurs. The 60s were a rough time, ya’ll.

Klara didn’t ask for much in life. Drugs. A place to sleep. A little respect would be nice, but hey, let’s not get crazy here. Was it too much to ask that the briefcase she’d (rightfully) stolen from the assassins in creepy furry masks would have some money in it?

Apparently the universe thought so. One minute she’s on public transit in a bloody bath towel, the next she’s on her ass in a tent… full of soldiers? In the jungle?

Still in a towel, though.

The universe knows no mercy, she guesses.

As the world- quite literally- explodes around her and the man in the helmet shouts at her to get dressed, Klara attempts to piece together where- and for that matter when- she is. There’s most definitely some kind of war going on, and judging by the uniforms and distinct smell of testosterone in the air, it’s sometime when people thought girls were too “delicate” for anything beyond vacuuming carpets and making babies. No one pays her any mind as she throws on the olive drabs someone shoved at her- looks like an adulthood of short haircuts and heroin starving the curves from her body is finally starting to pay off.

Finally dressed and shoved onto a rickety bus that gives a bone-shaking jolt every five minutes, Klara is running through options ( _How do I get back home? When can I get my hands on some ace bandages? Does Belle know what’s going on?)_ when someone takes the seat next to her. She recognizes him as the guy she accidentally woke up with her crash landing; cute, with a good jawline and hair that’s neatly coiffed even in the unbearable humidity.

“Just arrive in country?” he asks with a sympathetic smile.

In her usual defense method of extreme stress (and sadness and anger and confusion and sobriety and…), Klara huffs a laugh. “ You could say that.”

“You adjust.” He offers her a hand to shake almost shyly. “I’m Dave.”

“Klara,” she shakes his hand and turns back ahead before realizing she should have given a different name. Frank, or Nathan or something. She thinks she could make a good Robert…

But as she looks back at Dave with a joking apology prepared, she finds he doesn’t look suspicious or confused or even teasing. His eyes are wide and a faint flush colors his cheekbones. There’s an air of recognition about him; a traveler a foreign land finally seeing something familiar. Oh, there you are.

He glances around to make sure no one’s looking, then the next time the bus jostles he switches seats so he’s sitting next to her. “As long as we’re being honest,” he whispers in her ear, “it’s actually Daphne, if you don’t mind.”

Was it mentioned that the universe is a heartless bastard?

Klara looked her in the eye and, for the first time in far too long, smile genuinely. “Pleasure to meet you, Daphne.”

Her smile was brilliant and Klara felt her heart skip a beat.

☂️☂️☂️

On leave in Saigon, Klara convinces Daphne to ditch the guys and the two spend half a month in a dingy hotel room in the Vietnamese part of the city, where they spent their time drinking too much liquor, buying too many clothes, and avoiding too many personal demons. Daphne has to deal with her withdrawals and repeated arguments with the landlady’s ghost who keeps screaming at her for leaving her boots on the carpet, and in return Klara wakes to Daphne’s screams from memories of the jungle- both the one outside their window and the concrete one she grew up in. Comforting turns to kissing, which turns to fucking, which turns to making love.

It’s the happiest two weeks of either of their lives.

For now, there’s no screaming or crying or even love-making. In fact, the scene’s reminiscent of the preteen makeover nights she used to have with Daniella and Belle. They sit across from each other on the floor, the bag of makeup Klara’s bought spread out across the carpet between them. Daphne sits very still in her new blue dress and nylons, a pair of sensible brown heels waiting for her by the door, while Klara attempts to decipher the nature of 1960s eyeshadows. They’re chalkier than anything she’s used to, and it takes layers upon layers to get any sort of pigment.

“Do you think you can do eyeliner lashes?” Daphne asks, eyes closed as Klara dusts them with shimmery powder. “Like the kind Twiggy does?”

The brush pauses over the palette as Klara raises an eyebrow. “Who?”

Daphne’s eyes pop open, shocked. “Twiggy! You know… God, where have you been for the past three years?”

“Good question,” Klara laughs and turns her attention back to the eyeshadows. She’s trying very hard not to mess this up. Daphne is already beautiful, but her usual heavy-handed eyeliner just won’t do for her golden skin and easy smile.

The woman in question rolls her eyes and closes them again, but her teeth graze at her bottom lip for a moment before asking, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I dunno, I just… I’ve never gone out in public like this before and m’ just worried we might run into someone from the unit out there.” She chuckles bitterly. “Besides, even if we don’t, I don’t imagine that folks around here would be any more accepting of trannies than anyone in the states.”

Klara’s hand clenches around the brush with force that surprises her. “Don’t say that word.”

Daphne opens her eyes again with a stunned blink. Klara takes three seconds to take a deep breath through the nose and mumbles an apology before looking away. She still can’t loosen her grip on the brush.

There’s no way Daphne can understand why she’s so angry, so _offended_ on her behalf. Why she refuses to call her by anything other than her last name when they’re on the front, all the fistfights she’s gotten into with the guys who have loose lips and mean minds, how when she talks about what it’s like at home and sounds so fucking _resigned_ to it, like she deserves it, and then it’s Klara who’s crying and Daphne has to calm her down when it should be the other way around.

She never tells her that things get better, because she knows that’s what everyone on their side of history has been telling her ever since she realized she was herself, but she wants to so bad because it’s true. The year is 1968. About six months from now Marsha will throw the first stone at Stonewall, and nine years Harvey will stand at San Francisco's city hall to the cheers of thousands. Soon they’ll have a flag, then a riot, then a march. Before she’ll be officially middle aged, her existence will be decriminalized. There’s so much she wants to tell her and so much she deserve to know. She wants her to feel like she did on the bus the day they met all the time. A spark of disbelief, a river of hope, the sure unwavering certainty that she’s not alone.

A hand grazes Klara’s cheek and she turns back towards Daphne. Her brows are furrowed, but she smiles as she gently pries the brush from her shaking hand. “I think that’s enough for the eyes right now, eh? We can move on to the lips.”

She smiles at her brighter, and keeps smiling until Klara finally smiles back. A laugh escapes her lips and she gropes around the floor for two tubes of lipstick. “What do you think?” Daphne swatches them both on her wrist with expert precision. “White or nude?”

“Please, darling” Klara reaches past her for a tube of heavy pink gloss, and takes the moment to steal a kiss that Daphne returns. The kiss deepens and Klara is coaxed foreward, crawling over cheap carpet and expensive makeup to sit in her lover’s lap. She tastes like tobacco and saliva and peppermint chewing gum, like a wild summer night and a home away from home. She tastes alive.

They seperate, but Klara stays close enough to whisper against her lips. “Just for tonight, let’s be _bold_.”

☂️☂️☂️

“It’s not gonna be like this forever, y’know.”

Daphne looks up from admiring the bruises and shiny kiss marks she’s left on her sallow skin with a soft hum. It’s past the witching hour after a night of shining lights and brown liquor and close bodies, and Klara is naked, smoking, and just sated enough to break her self-endowed silence. 

_Just for tonight, let's be bold._

“It’s going to get better,” she says slowly, memorizing the patterns of the cracks in the ceiling. “Not right away, and it’s not gonna be one-hundred-percent hunky-dory, but it’s gonna be better. One day fifty years from now we’re gonna be in a whole new world and… it’s going to be better.”

“How can you know that?” Daphne whispers.

“C’mon, don’t you trust me?”

She cuddles closer and rests her head on her chest. “Absolutely.”

Before Klara can wrap her head around the fact that no one’s ever admitted that before, Daphne adds, “Fifty years together… I kinda like the sound of that.”

Klara closes her eyes and focuses on Daphne’s warmth. Pretends she’s not a washed-up superhero or a broken junkie or an unwilling time traveler. Instead she just thinks about spending fifty years like this. With someone who loves her. With someone who trusts her.

She kinda likes the sound of that, too.


	6. Nicknames- Everyone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it weren’t for Mom being the one to name her, she’d be certain that her name was a punishment.

Around the house she was Lu. Plain Lu, no frills or bells attached. Short, masculine, uncomplicated Lu. If Klara and Five were in a teasing mood it would often be lengthened to a girlier-sounding Lulu, much to her dismay. Occasionally Arthur could get away with Isa, but only if they were alone and if one of them was feeling particularly emotionally vulnerable. Other than that it was Lu, except for interviews and press releases. Then is was the whole nine yards, Luisa Hargreaves, no exceptions. No matter how much she liked the more masculine sound of her nickname, that was for her family only.

If it weren’t for Mom being the one to name her, she’d be certain that her name was a punishment. Eight letters, three complicated syllables. _Dan-yell-ah,_ occasionally lengthened out to an impossible four syllables. _Dan-ee-elle-ah._ Needless to say she collected nicknames the way some children might collect toy cars or interesting rocks. Dan. Danni. Dee. Dee-Dee. El. Ellie. Ella. Danielle. Ana. Annie. Everyone had their favorites, but her’s ironically (or more likely, spitefully), was the hardest for her to say. Coined when she was old enough sign her own legal documents, and she asked the mother that named her if she might have a middle name as well. Permission was granted with a tender, red-lipped smile, and with that, Daniella Grace was born.

There was a magic to his name; a connotation that evoked images of knights on horseback and magic spells and epic romances. He used the full of it when he could, but the shorthand was common around the house, especially for poor Daniella. Art or Artie, usually coupled with some juvenile suffix. Artieboo, Artiekins, Artirella… the list goes on. He spent his childhood either feeling like a knight for the new generation or like some old lady’s cat, but no one ever said there was much dignity in having siblings.

If a child hears their full name, they’re most likely to think they’re in trouble. As it turns out, ordinary childhood experiences happen in even very extraordinary households. She spends most of her childhood being Klara and Klara Hargreaves and Miss Klara, but there are times when she takes things too far, gets a little too high or lets someone get a little too handsy, and that’s when she becomes Klar. Usually by Belle or Arthur or Daniella, usually followed by a explative of some sort, and usually when she’s at her lowest, but she takes comfort in the name. It’s how she knows things are bad, but for once she’s not going to be punished for it.

No nickname. No name either, really.

She had the disadvantage of both liking her own name and it being short enough that an easy-to-remember (ergo, easy-to-pronounce) version was unnecessary.  Thus she was Belle to everyone. Klara did take needless joy in making up nicknames anyway. Bella, Bellie, Bello, Belle-Belle, Bluebell- eventually changed to Boo-Belle after she died. A touch morbid, but she learned long ago that you have to smile at the things that hurt.

Were it not for the long-standing debate over his name’s pronunciation, he’s sure that no one would have ever called him it. Everyone in the house- even Dad!- was torn between the _EEE-vahn_ of Russia and the Americanized _Eye-van._ The debate was never officially solved; everyone just sort of decided to call him whichever one they liked best (which one he liked was of no importance). He never got a nickname until their late teens, when Klara started hiding from Dad in his room. She’d be so high she could barely manage any speech outside of giggling and the occasional sob, so Ivan was quickly cut down to Van. It eventually made its way into her slightly-more-sober lexicon, then Belle picked it up, and Arthur soon after. In all honestly he didn’t know which way he liked his name better, but if he had a choice, he’d always be Van.


	7. Clothes Make the Woman- Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing she wanted to do was wear the stupid thing again, but she wasn’t going to get far in a thirteen-year-old body currently drowning in gray tweed.

Seven hangers deep and every one looked exactly the same: red plaid romper, white button-down, blue blazer with red piping and family crest on the left breast pocket. The bottom of the closet was lined with four identical pairs of black mary janes, lined up neatly next to two small fabric-lined boxes. One for several pairs of knee-high black socks, one for black wool ties.

“Shit,” Five swore. Maybe her brothers and sisters were actually onto something when they started hoarding civvies in their preteens.

Not that she would ever let them know, even as she stared into the endless abyss of her cartoon character closet. The satisfaction might actually kill them.

Shaking her head in annoyance she swiped a random hanger from the rack and threw it onto the bed. The last thing she wanted to do was wear the stupid thing again, but she wasn’t going to get far in a thirteen-year-old body currently drowning in gray tweed. _I’ll bet Domanick thinks this is hilarious._

Five made quick work the suit, shucking the pencil skirt off in one hard tug and sliding the round black buttons of her wide-collared blazer through their holes and sliding it off her shoulders. Both articles were then folded and placed on the edge of the bed, along with her black silk blouse, white slip, and patent leather Louis Vuittons with a heel low enough to be practical but high enough not to arise suspicion in the early sixties. The pantyhose, however, were treated with far less reverence. She had always hated pantyhose, but were regulation at The Commission and thus she wore them. Seems that even an almost-sixty time-traveling assassin can’t escape the tyranny of dress codes.

Not caring is her nails made runs, Five clawed the offending garment from her legs and chucked the wad of nylon into the wastepaper bin. She grinned in satisfaction, but then made the fatal error of glancing downwards.

Nothing. She wasn’t there. The spots, the dimples, the curves… all that remained was the gray, slightly pointed bra hanging loosely against a boyish chest. Definitely her bra, but definitely not her _her._

As a child she’d been a late bloomer physically, her and Klara both. Daniella, who’d started on training bras at age ten, liked to tease the two of them about it to really no avail. Klara didn’t care either way and Five didn’t see what was so significant about having breasts, but now…

She jerked her head up and set her lip. Stupid. Five dressed quickly and efficiently and didn’t look in the mirror until she was fully dressed. Everything fit like a memory, every cuff and collar tailored to the exact size she was now. It was familiar. Haunting. The meanings overlapped.

In the back of her mind, she kept a picture of herself the day she arrived in the future. Was it possible to find a difference between that mental snapshot and the reflection that stared back at her? Same blunt-cut dark bob with sideswept bangs. Same wide mouth and hard, serious eyebrows. Same mole about a quarter inch from her jaw. Same uniform of red plaid jumper and white button-down and blue blazer with red piping and family crest on the left breast pocket.

Different eyes. Not in color or shape, but in character.

From her dresser she found two barrettes- chunky, cheap red plastic shaped into thin rectangles and stamped with little teddy bears- and used them to clip her hair behind her ears. Then, as a second thought, she unclasped the “KENNEDY ‘64” button from her suit’s blazer, polished the blood off, and clipped it to her new jacket. Her thumb grazed the faded tin reverently.

She had changed. So had her family. They had changed without her, but she changed without them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to do a Five piece for this AU, but I wasn't really sure where to go with it because honestly? Five as a girl isn't really different than Five as a boy. She's probably more bitter about her age regression, but other than that there wasn't really much I felt like a could do without just repeating scenes of the show (but with girls!), y'know? I have another piece where I analyzed Five relationship with his body now that he's stuck as a child again, and I kinda went with that same theme here because A) it's a really interesting theme to me, and B) it's almost heightened in a genderswap universe because the physical difference between being a girl and a woman is more pronounced than a boy and a man. 
> 
> But TBH? I just really wanted to write Five being salty. 
> 
> Hope it worked out lol
> 
> Also, Dominick = Delores


	8. A Dream That's Washed Away- Klara, Belle, & Daniella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d been trying so hard to find Daphne only to learn there was a part of her right under her nose this entire time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: depictions of graphic miscarriage, grief, and brief allusions to sexual assault 
> 
> Yeah, this is a heavy one, folks...

It was a well-known fact in the Hargreaves household that Klara was a drug addict. It had started when she was far too young. She didn’t think of it as a sob story; another star kid who got caught up in the fame game or a lost soul trying to cope with a broken home. It was just a means of necessity, to keep the demons (literal and metaphorical) at bay. There was one comedian that she, Arthur, and Luisa liked who had a sketch about what drunk eight-year-olds would be like, which had inspired a customized t-shirt that read “O’HALLIGANS: HOME OF NICKEL SHOT NIGHT.”

(Belle didn’t think that was funny, but Belle was a killjoy. And here Klara thought the dead might like gallows humor).

It was also a well-known fact that Klara had been legally homeless for the past seven years; the only reason she went to rehab anymore was to have a place to sleep that wasn’t rainy or cold. And lastly, it was a well-known fact that because of these first two facts, a childhood of abuse, ten months of ‘Nam PTSD, the general swarm of ghost that live around her, meeting God (who turned out to be a rather rude little girl with a cool hat and a bicycle), and the literal apocalypse, Klara was continually under a metric fuckton of stress on an almost-daily basis.

This is all a very roundabout way to say that Klara had a menstrual cycle that ran like traffic in Los Angeles.

Not that it worried her that much. Who needed all that blood and cramping and nastiness anyway? _Major bummer._ When it did come it was light and infrequent. Just a little rusty discharge when she went to the bathroom. She winced as another cramp raked through her, deep enough to make her back muscles clench. Of course after everything else that had happened that week, Mother Nature felt it was the perfect time for a once in a blue moon visit.

A motion caught her attention and she glanced up from the pillow she had her face buried in. Belle was pacing the length of her bedroom, her thick black French braid whipping behind her as she turned at each wall. A low churring sound seemed to emanate from her person.

“I don’t like this,” she repeated for the third time.

Klara dropped her head back and laughed. “What are _you_ so worried about? Last time I checked, *I’m* the one bleeding from her hoo-ha.” She rolled over onto her side. “And aren’t you the one who keeps nagging me about ‘women’s health’ and ‘what healthy adult bodies should do’ and ‘buying some goddamn fruit or something you can’t eat heroin.’”

“First of all, you’re using finger-quotes wrong-”

“You’re ‘using’ finger-quotes ‘wrong.’”

“-Secondly, even if you’ve been taking care of yourself enough to get back to a regular period- which, by the way, you haven’t- you’ve never had them this bad before. Not even when we were kids!”

“Why they call me the dramatic one, I have no idea…” Klara rolled her eyes and laughed, but was cut short by another cramp. She cut off with a gasp and curled in on herself, scrunching her eyes shut tight enough to see white blobs dancing in the dark.

When she opened her eyes Belle was kneeling in front of her, frowning and brows knit together, but eyes bright and worried. “You’re in pain,” she said plainly.

“And you’re overreacting.” She gave her sister two pats on the cheek- the first phasing through her face and the second one not- and moved to sit up. Instantly a blistering pain, like magma in her belly, burst inside of her and she dropped back down. The soft string lights that lined her room suddenly felt blindingly bright and she had to try very hard not to blackout.

Preparing herself for the signature “Told You So” face Belle made whenever she did something stupid, Klara looked up with a sarcastic comment prepared that died on her tongue the second she saw Belle’s face. The color had drained and she stared down at the bed near her legs. “What’s that?”

Klara lifted her hips up and contorted herself as best she could to follow her gaze. The inside of her legs were bright red and sticky, the blood having soaked completely through her boxers and onto the flannel sheets. She blinked, confused. Had she not put a tampon in? No, she could still feel it inside of her. It’d only been that afternoon; how could she have bled through that fast? If so, then what was staining her bed was a worrying amount of blood.

Another cramp tore through her and she felt something leak from her. Okay, maybe there was a problem…

“Side effect of time travel?” she suggested with a weak laugh.

“We need to find Five,” announced Belle. “Now.”

Forgetting the predicaments involved in being a ghost, Belle dashed for the door. She tried for the knob, but her hands wouldn’t stay corporeal long enough to turn it. The churring sound intensified. Sensing that if she didn’t do something then she’d have to deal with an angry tentacle monster on top of this, Klara attempted to get up only to immediately crash onto the floor. Belle stopped trying to open the door and dropped next to her. Seconds later the door creaked open and an undercutted, ponytailed head stuck itself inside.

“You doin’ alright in-?” Daniella cut off and opened the door wider to take in the room. Between the blood in the sheets and her body sprawled across the hardwood, Klara imagined it probably looked like a really really graphic game of Clue. Ivan did it in the bedroom with a candelabra.

“Oopsie,” Klara managed after a moment.

“Fuck, Klar… _fuck._ ” Daniella pushed her way into the room and knelt opposite of Belle. “What happened?”

Klara glanced from Belle to Daniella and sighed. “I don’t know...”

Daniella shook her head and scooped Klara up in an annoyingly effortless motion. “Pogo! Mom!” she shouted as she speed-walked into the hallway, Belle at their heels. “We need help!”

The next hour or so was then a blur of white sheets and blood tests and inane questions that didn’t really help with anything. Klara got hooked up with a drip that dulled the pain enough that she could sit up. Faintly, she could hear Luisa and Five bickering on the other side of the locked infirmary door. She imagined what the fight must look like- Five on tiptoes not even reaching chest level to Luisa’s Amazonian figure and still arguing circles around her. It made her giggle.

Daniella ran to fetch a clean pair of underwear, Mom held her hand and stroked her hair like she did when they were little, and Belle lingered in the background when Pogo finally came back with the results from the tests, wiping his hands on his corduroys and glancing outside. Something felt off.

“I _told_ you I was clean,” Klara started, feeling like that was a safe place to go.

“I know. I didn’t doubt you, Miss Klara, I just…” he smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Mom asked gently, blinking at him with an encouraging smile.

Pogo shook his head and motioned for Mom to come over. Klara watched silently as they exchanged words in hushed tones. She glanced over her shoulder at Belle, who could only shrug.

“Oh,” Mom finally said softly. “I see.”

With the usual unearthly poise that only she could possess, Mom walked back to Klara and knelt so she could look up at her. She took her hand again and use the other one to touch her cheek. “Klara, dear,” she began with a sad smile. “I want you to understand that you’ve been doing the best you could. You’ve come so far and we’re all so proud of you! But… but your body’s just been so sick, and it just wasn’t a safe place. It wasn’t your fault. It’s important that you understand that.”

Okay, NOW she was starting to get a little freaked out. “Safe for what?”

Mom took a deep breath and blinked, like she was holding back tears. Could she cry? Klara didn’t know. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. The baby’s gone.”

Klara blinked.

Belle blinked.

Mom blinked.

“I’m not pregnant,” Klara said slowly, glancing around the room for places where a camera might be hidden.

“Well, it seems as though you are. Were.” Pogo stepped forward. “By my estimation you were about two months along.”

“No, no,” Klara shook her head, a manic laugh bubbling from her chest. “This is a joke! I was never pregnant! I haven’t even been here, how could I have-?”

Oh.

A tiny hotel room in Saigon. Creaky mattress and thin walls. Lips like sunshine and hands kinder than hers have ever been. Grinding and wetness and teasing giggles when she asked about protection. _It’s not like we’re starting a family or anything._

Comforting turning to kissing turning to fucking turning to making love.

Oh no.

She’d been trying so hard to find Daphne only to learn there was a part of her right under her nose this entire time. For two months. Was there. Now she was gone. Again.

Nonononononono…

Somewhere on the other side of the universe, Pogo calmly, gently began explaining what was happening to her body and what they next few days were going to be like. Vaguely she could feel Mom’s hand still on hers, but the weight and warmth slipped away into nothing. The world turned to radio static, evaporating into ozone and she was fading right along with it.

“Klar,” Belle croaked. She sounded like she was at the bottom of a well. “You’re scaring me. Say something.”

She looked down. There was still red coming out of her.

_Daphne._

_Blood._

_Not again._

She screamed.

☂️☂️☂️

Daniella hesitated at the door. From where she stood couldn’t hear anything, just the reverbing _drip...drip...drip_ of the bathtub faucet. Klara hadn’t really felt like talking over the past few days. The house has been too quiet.

For a moment she considered leaving, giving her sister space, but that was her own cowardice talking. Taking a deep breath, she gave the door a light push and it creaked open.

It was a familiar scene; Klara in the bathtub, headphones firmly affixed to her ears, only her head, shoulders, and tops of her knees visible from the water. Her eyes were closed and she’d sunk in so that her mouth was underwater, absently blowing bubbles every so often. The sound of her boots against the tile caught her attention and she sat up, cat green eyes wide.

“Oh,” Klara took off her headphones and paused her Walkman, cutting off the faint tinny sound of Bowie abruptly. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.” Daniella dragged the old wood chair that sat next to the tub over and sat. “Mom just wanted me to check up on you. It’s been a while.”

Klara shrugged. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Liar,” she responded, and Klara snorted half-heartedly. She looked back down at the water. Daniella looked, too. Clear as ever.

She took a breath before starting again. “So, you’ll be pleased to know I finally talked Luisa out of ordering a kit.”

Her head whipped back up quickly, sending water droplets flying her hair. “She wanted to _what?!?”_

“Exactly what I said.”

Leaning over and grabbing the tub’s edge, she looked at her with a rage that surprised her. “I wasn’t raped,” Klara hissed.

Daniella put her hands up in surrender. “Hey, you know that and I know that, but as Lulu sees it you’re a homeless drug addict who suddenly turns up pregnant and refuses to talk about it.”

Her sister glared up at her for a moment more, then unclenched her hands from the rim of the tub and sunk back into the water. “Well, when you put it like _that…_ ”

“Yeah, but I finally managed to get it through her thick head that it wouldn’t pick anything up after two months. She just worries, that’s it. She may be a short-sighted, stubborn bitch, but you can’t say that her heart’s in the wrong place.”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Luisa is expressing genuine concern about my health and welfare, and you just paid Luisa a compliment. It’s official-” Klara dramatically put the back of her hand against her forehead. “We’ve gone insane.”

“Shut up,” Daniella splashed her and Klara giggled. There was no real heat behind the comment; it was just good to hear her laugh again. Especially since what was going to some next was less than a laughing matter. “Besides, I figured that the reason you don’t wanna talk about it has less to do with that and more to do with that person you lost?”

Klara stopped laughing and stared back down. Under the water she crossed her arms over her stomach. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”

“You started bawling like a two-year-old in the middle of a VFW and I had to stop you from getting your ass handed to you from a bunch of veterans. I don’t think I’m likely to forget.” She hesitated, then finally, “What was his name?”

Another half-hearted snort. She held herself a little tighter. “ _Her_ name was Daphne.”

Daniella quirked an eyebrow. “Her? Then how-?”

Klara rolled her eyes. “It’s 2019, Dee-Dee. A lady from the 1960s can have a dick.”

 _Damn_. Daniella sunk into her chair, suddenly boneless. “Well, shit.”

Her sister nodded grimly, still not looking her way. Daniella tried to imagine what it must have been like for her in the war, and failed miserably. Instead she tried to imagine her love; being so devoted to a person as to follow them anywhere, even to the foxholes of Vietnam. Did she love Eudora enough to do that? Theoretically, but she wasn’t her sister. Fighting came easy to her; _war_ came easy to her. Klara was never a warrior, but here she was with rifle calluses on her hands and helicopter blades whirring behind her eyes. The better (re: harder) question would be could she have loved Eudora enough to _stop?_

Again, it’s all theoretical now, and she’ll never get a chance to prove it true or false. The thought hung in her mind like a dead weight; getting hit on the head and dropping like a brick.

“Well,” she swallowed all of that down- what she could imagine wasn’t important right now. They had some reality to face. “Daphne must have been very special person to put up with your weird-ass shit.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she was. She was kind, and strong, and vulnerable, and… beautiful.” She whispered it like a prayer. “Beautiful. And I was foolish enough to follow her all the way to the front line.”

“Of course we weren’t trying or anything; it never even came up when we talked or… she never even… but as it turns out ‘safe sex’ wasn’t really a thing in ye olden days. And who could blame ‘em? Condoms were fucking _expensive!_ But yeah, no… we didn’t talk about having kids ever. Her dysphoria was so bad and there’s was no way I could get pregnant; not with how fucked up my body is… guess I was wrong about that, though. We talked about nice things for when we got back to the states. A place in the country, a couple of goats- Daph wanted to learn cheese-making- a garden… maybe a cat…”

It was at that point Daniella realized that Klara was crying. Normally it was so obvious because her eyeliner would run, so she looked like a raccoon practicing mime. Now the only clue was the counterpoint drip of tears to the leaky faucet. _Dripdrip...dripdrip...dripdrip…_

Suddenly angry again, Klara swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t know why I’m so upset about this! I didn’t know I was- I didn’t even _want_ kids! Why would I bring someone into this world who might be just as much of a mess as I am? _No one_ deserves that- I don’t hate anyone THAT much! But… I’ve been trying so. Fucking. _Hard._ To find her again. I haven’t used in a month. I STILL feel like I wanna claw my skin off all the time. Everyone looks at me like I might start using again at any second. All that, and _I still can’t see the woman I love-!”_

She cut off in a sob, hands covering her mouth and shoulders shaking. “And now I’ve killed her,” she whimpered between sobs. “She’s gone.”

Daniella was suddenly, painfully reminded of their childhood when The Academy would have missions that relied on her power specifically- shipwrecks and deep sea retrievals and supervillians with eccentric underwater lairs. She remembered the weighted vest she wore as she would be dropped from the side of the family liner like an anchor. It was only enjoyable for the first few minutes- that’s when the ocean still looked like the ocean. But then the colors would change from pleasant blue to the blackest of blacks. Unfamiliar creatures would brush her feet and face. It would be so cold that she could forget that she was a human girl and not actually an anchor. The radio in her ear almost always lost signal and sometimes her tiny headlamp would explode from the water pressure.

For years she’d prided herself on being the one who could handle Klara, second only to Belle. But the fact of the matter was that she only liked- only _knew HOW_ to skim the service. Going deep meant unexplored waters that only got darker and darker, full of terrifying monsters and soul-leeching coldness. A quiet Klara was worrying. An angry Klara was scary. Klara in mourning? Daniella had no idea what to do; she just watched the ridge of Klara’s back twitch as she cried. Her hands felt as clumsy as her tongue, both of them trapped respectively between her thighs and between her teeth.

(If this was how Ivan felt all the time, then maybe she could understand why he wrote that book.)

“I bet she was a girl,” Klara suddenly whispered. “I bet she had her skin, her eyes… or maybe my eyes and her hair. I’d probably be a terrible parent- look at the role models I’ve had!- but Arthur could have helped. Mom, too, and… I could have sang to her, and… and made her tiny socks… I would have loved her. I do love her. Swear it.”

As a child Daniella never had a choice as to how far deep she got to go, but now…

The chair made an unpleasant, stuttered sound as she scooted it across the tile closer to the tub before she pulled her upper half into her arms and held her. Mom used to do this. Daniella could remember the way her hand felt moving over her hair, the shushing noise she made like wind in bare trees that soothed her. She didn’t have much experience as a nurturer, but she remembered those golden childhood memories of Mom.

“You are the bravest goddamn person I’ve ever known,” Daniella whispered.

A half-laugh, half-hiccup jolted Klara against her chest. “Now you’re complimenting _me._ We’ve defiantly gone crazy.”

“Klar?”

“Mhm?”

“Just take it.”

There was a long pause, then finally, “Yeah… okay,” and Klara sunk deeper into the embrace.

She was in the dark, but Daniella was diving down to be there with her. And with time and a little luck, maybe they could resurface, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...
> 
> Stay tuned for AU stuff where Klara gets to keep her baby  
> (AU of an AU? Is that allowed? IDK, but even though this is what realistically would happen writing this made me really sad and Klaus/Klara deserves nice things. T_T)


	9. To Mend a Burned Bridge- Daniella and Luisa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniella had never hated Luisa

It was one of the facts of life. Water was wet. The sky was blue. Luisa and Daniella hated each other.

Well, it wasn’t so much hate as it was… _repulsion._ Like two like-poled magnets trying to get away from one another, pushing and _pushing._ No one would dare say it aloud, but they were alike in many ways. They were the top two children of The Academy; the self-proclaimed “big sisters” to Klara, Five, and Belle’s “little sister” statuses. Both strong of body and strong of will. They were both protective and ambitious and secretly awkward and stubborn as the day is long.

Sir Hargreaves tolerated the two of them the most.

Of course, none of these similarities meant anything to either of them. All they saw were the differences. Luisa rejected any sort of femininity while Daniella made it her mission to be the Girliest Girl to Ever Girl. Luisa was a rule-follower while Daniella was a rebel. Luisa was a self-righteous, hypocritical bitch (not her words) and Daniella was a tempermental, out-of-control showpony (not hers either.)

Luisa was Number One and Daniella was Number Two.

Both of them had heard at a young age that parents love their children unconditionally. Daniella had learned since then that there was an exception to every rule.

Luisa didn’t.

And that was why hate was never the right word.

☂️☂️☂️

Daniella stopped on her way to her bedroom. The bathroom door was ajar, and inside Luisa stood in her pajamas staring dead-eyed into the mirror above the sink.

She blinked a few times to reorient herself. She’d been doing that a lot since Five’s Big Apocalypse Time-Jump Cop-Out. Going around the house she would see Klara with long hair or Belle perfectly alive or- like now- Luisa with a human body and a pixie cut, and Daniella would have to remind herself that this was real. It wasn’t a dream or a flashback or a memory. Five really had transported them back in time to their preteen years to stop the apocalypse before it could begin.

That was about a month ago; Daniella didn’t know for how much long she was going to have to keep this practice up. Maybe all the way until she was twenty-nine once again.

Slowly, she pushed open the bathroom door and leaned against the jam. Luisa didn’t seem to notice. Instead she continued to ghost her hand over her hair. It had filled out a little over the past month- still definitely a pixie, but not the clean, close-cropped look she had grown up with. Not the tousled lob she had come back from the moon with, either.

Daniella hadn’t known what to think of that.

“You can touch it all you want,” she called and Luisa flinched as she realized she had been caught. “But it’s not gonna make it grow back any faster.”

(Incidentally, Luisa and Daniella also had a similar taste in movies. This similarity was ignored with all of the others.)

Luisa released a breath through her nose and dropped her hand, letting both of them loosely grip the edges of the sink. “Dad never loved us, did he?”

She couldn’t help it; Daniella snorted a laugh. “Took you long enough.”

Her hands tensed on the sink, the porcelain cracking under her grip. “Yes or no, Two.”

The name hit like a slap in the face, even after all this time. “No,” Daniella said coldly. She felt any sympathy or humor she might have had drain from her like a broken sink. Screw her. _Screw. Her._   “No, he didn’t. Doesn’t. He doesn’t love us. Funny how time works, huh?”

Luisa stiffened, then relaxed and nodded slowly. Her grip on the sink losened once more as her teeth grazed over her bottom lip. Daniella watched, oddly fascinated. All things considered, she was taking this revelation astonishingly well.

That is, until she screamed and threw her fist into the mirror.

It happened so fast Daniella didn’t register what was going on until she saw the mirror explode into a hundred little shards of glass that rained all around the sink, the antique wood frame splintering down the middle and collapsing uselessly to the tile floor. Luisa stood still for a moment longer, shaking with rage, before dropping to the floor and hugging her body into a tight ball.

Daniella’s eyes flickered between her sister and the spot on the wall where the mirror used to be. A hole the size of a fist was driven through the drywall.

“Okay…” she said slowly. “That was more of the reaction I was expecting.”

“Shut up! Just-” Luisa shook her head and raked a hand over her hair. Her hand closed into a fist at the back of her scalp, but there wasn’t enough hair to grab onto, so the hand just dropped. This seemed to make her angrier and she dropped her head into her knees. A moment of silence passed before it was joined by wet, muffled gasps and hiccups.

Quickly, Daniella closed the door behind her and shoved the chair that Mom used to use to sit with them while they took baths under the doorknob. She could barely believe what she was seeing. How old were they the last time she had seen Luisa cry? Seven? Six? Definitely not since she was nine and started her personal crusade to reject anything that Sir Hargreaves might find “feminine”, and yes, that included crying.

_God, he screwed us up good._

Careful not to step in glass, Daniella tiptoed around where Luisa sat and knelt in front of her. She tried to imagine that she was with Klara, or even Belle, or that she was Mom, who always knew what to do to comfort one of them.

Daniella never had much of an imagination.

“I did _everything_ for him,” Luisa finally strains through the muffle of linen and skin. “I was on the moon for four years. I never even moved out of the house. I obeyed every order; listened to everything he said, and I _believed_ him! I wasted twenty-nine years on someone who didn’t even care if I lived or died!”

She whipped her head up suddenly and looked at Daniella, eyes wet and desperate. “Why doesn’t he love me?”

Daniella never had much of an imagination. She couldn’t muster the theoretical compassion or love she reserved for the people who needed it, but oddly enough, she didn’t feel annoyed or angry at Luisa for this outburst. Maybe it was because this had been so long in the making; twenty-nine years plus time travel. Maybe because after weeks of “dad sent me to the moon,” Daniella just didn’t have the energy to rebuttal it anymore.

Maybe because a new emotion for her sister was welling up inside her.

Pity.

Daniella had never hated Luisa. She pitied her.

Exhaling a sigh, Daniella shrugged. “He doesn’t love any of us. That’s why we’re all back here again in the first place. So we can grow up better without him breaking us.”

Luisa absorbed this slowly, before quietly asking, “Can we kill him?”

She barked a chuckle, surprising herself. “We’d have to check with Five about that. I think if we did we might break time.”

The blonde scowled into her knees and squeezed herself tighter, tight enough to form bruises. “I hate this.”

“Don’t we all.”

“I hate him. _Hate_ him.”

“It’s a start.”

Her hand swiped over her pixie again and her scowl deepened. “I miss my hair,” she admitted, quieter.

Nothing to be done about that, but Daniella stool up and brushed the glass from the knees of her pajama pants. “I’ve got some spare hair ties once it grows out enough.”

Finally Luisa looked up from her knees, eyes dancing with confusion. She opened her mouth, closed it, then just smiled in quiet bewilderment.

“Thanks,” she said.

It was a start.

 


End file.
